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Manchester. The John Rylands Library, English MS 50

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Source
Manchester Digital Collections
Library
The John Rylands Library
Shelfmark
  • English MS 50
Biblissima authority file
Date
  • the end of the 14th Century
Language
  • Middle English
  • Latin
Title
  • Pricke of Conscience; Guy of Warwick, Speculum (Pricke of Conscience | Prick of Conscience)
Agent
Description
  • Extent:
    112 folios (vi+112+v), paginated 1-224 Leaf height: 250 mm, width: 150 mm.
    Binding:

    Full chestnut morocco by the W.H. Smith Bindery (i.e. Douglas Cockerell): W.H.S. monogram on the turn-in of the lower cover.


    Decoration:

    Running headers repeated continuously at the top margin of each page.


    Rubrication

    Paraph marks (pilcrows) in red and blue appear throughout to denote internal division. Example on page 11.

    A number of sections of text in Latin are introduced by 1-line rubricated initials in red and blue for example 30.

    Red rubrication and pen-flourished initials introduce each book and frequently sections of a book.


    Initials

    Several 2- and 5-line initials in blue ink with red penwork infill and flourishes; the two initials on page 1 are water-damaged.

    Large pen-flourished initials in blue and red ink introduce each book:

    1: 5-line red initials ‘L’ and ‘B’
    25: 5-line pen-flourished initial 'W'
    46: 5-line pen-flourished initial 'D'
    73: 5-line pen-flourished initial 'D'
    129: Large pen-flourished initial 'H'
    145: 5-line pen-flourished initial 'H'
    205: 5-line pen-flourished initial 'N'

    Small, 2-line pen-flourished initials in blue and red ink introduce book parts:

    Pen-flourished initial ‘A’ on 2 pages 108 and 118
    Pen-flourished initial ‘B’ on 1 page 97
    Pen-flourished initial ‘C’ on 5 pages 23, 85, 95, 107, 121
    Pen-flourished initial ‘D’ on 5 pages 74, 93, 106, 123, 137
    Pen-flourished initial ‘E’ on 6 pages 10, 43, 44, 93, 109, 112
    Pen-flourished initial ‘F’ on 2 pages 78 and 99
    Pen-flourished initial ‘H’ on 6 pages 13, 15, 16, 18, 56, 94
    Pen-flourished initial ‘L’ on 3 pages 55, 110, 195
    Pen-flourished initial ‘M’ on 4 pages 12, 18, 60, 69
    Pen-flourished initial ‘N’ on 9 pages 19, 30, 38, 48, 52, 54, 78, 100, 201
    Pen-flourished initial ‘O’ on 4 pages 31, 33, 153, 182
    Pen-flourished initial ‘P’ on 1 page 111
    Pen-flourished initial ‘Q’ on 9 pages 10, 17, 35, 54, 59, 90, 91, 126, 161
    Pen-flourished initial ‘R’ on 1 page 92
    Pen-flourished initial ‘S’ on 7 pages 15, 19, 36, 42, 101, 109, 127
    Pen-flourished initial ‘T’ on 11 pages 13, 21, 28, 36, 56, 70, 94, 135, 146, 156, 191
    Pen-flourished initial ‘U’ on 1 page 105
    Pen-flourished initial ‘V’ on 6 pages 42, 57, 117, 119, 122, 181
    Pen-flourished initial ‘W’ on 1 page: 25


    Acquisition:

    Purchased by The John Rylands Library from the London bookseller Bernard Quaritch Ltd in 1919 for £35; invoice dated 28 January 1919.


    Layout:

    Single column, 33 long lines written below top line. Frame and line ruling in dark crayon or pencil and text lines almost invisible: single vertical bounding lines extending to the top of the page and into the lower margin; single horizontal bounding line extending the full width of the page; absence of the horizontal bounding line from the lower margins; no evidence of pricking.

    Written height: 190 mm, width: 87 mm.
    Collation:
    Quire 18 lacking 7 and 8 (pages 1-12)
    Quires 2-48
    Quire 58 lacking 6 after page 70 (a tiny scrap remains) and 8 after pages 72
    Quire 98
    Quire 108 lacking 2-7 after page 90
    Quires 11-188
    Quire 192 (pages 221-4)

    Catchwords framed in a decorative band can be found in the lower, inner margin of the verso of the final leaf of each quire: 28, 44, 60, 88, 92, 108, 124, 140, 156, 172, 188, 220.

    Secundo folio: In her manere


    Script:

    Written in gothic anglicana formata by a single scribe. According to Prof. Angus McIntosh, British Library, Harley 1205 is in the same hand.


    Subject(s):
    Poetry, Medieval; Devotional literature, English (Middle); Christian literature, English (Middle)
    Abstract:

    The manuscript contains two works: the first is the Pricke of Conscience; the second is the first 659 lines of a 14th-century romantic work called the Speculum Gy of Warewyke, in which Guy asks Alcuin for advice on how to escape the enticements of the world.

    (1) Pages 1-204, imperfect copy of the Pricke of Conscience, ed. Richard Morris, The pricke of conscience (see Bibliography below). Index of Middle English verse, no. 1193/3. A variant version, as in Bodleian Library, Douce 156 (Summary Catalogue 21730), beginning with a 20-line prologue (running title 'Entre'), 'Her beginneþ þe soþ to say ... God hit vs graunte say all Amen'. The text begins 'Befor þat e[ny] þ[ing] was wrouȝt' and ends 'That for oure heele on roode con hinge'. Probably thirty-four leaves are missing between these points in gaps after pages 12, 70, 72 (probably 17 leaves), 90, and 140 (probably 8 leaves): the missing lines are between 394 and 528, 2551 and 2626, 2704 and 3957, 4594 and 5017, and 6824 and 7392. The removal of almost the whole of book 4, on purgatory, may have been on purpose, since the two lines on page 11 referring to book 4 have been erased (lines 356-7); the gap in passing from the last line on page 72 (2704) to the first line on page 73 (3957) is not very obvious.

    (2) Pages 205-224, Guy of Warwick, Speculum, ending imperfectly (lines 1-659 only), ed. Georgiana Lea Morrill, Speculum Gy de Warewyke: an English poem (see Bibliography below), p. xxxi. Index of Middle English verse, no. 1101/10. The text begins 'Herknes alle to my speche' and ends 'wolde þou shone'. It accompanies the Prick of Conscience also in Cambridge University Library, MS Dd.11.89, and British Library, Arundel 140 and Harley 1731.


    Foliation:

    Paginated 1-224


    Format:
    Codex
    Material:
    Parchment
    Provenance:

    Peter Le Neve, 1661-1729 Norroy King of Arms: inscription 'P. le Neve, Norroy' on page 1.

    Thomas Held: seventeenth-century inscription on page 224.

    Thomas Martin, 1697-1771 antiquary: inscription on the verso of the fourth flyleaf. Martin was executor of Peter le Neve. Cf. English MS 87, also owned by Martin.

    Andrew Clerke : eighteenth-century inscription on page 1.

    Richard Farmer, 1735-1797, Master of Emmanuel College, Cambridge; his sale on 7 May 1798, lot 8061.

    H.C. Harford (admitted at Emmanuel College in 1785) who wrote a note on the recto of the fifth flyleaf signed 'C.J.H.' and dated 1813 in which he says that the book had been in Benjamin Uphill's catalogue for 1800 and that he had bought it when Uphill 'lived in Bridge Street 1802'. His sale at Sotheby's, 6 May 1907, lot 229.

    Bernard Quaritch, 1819-1899 bookseller, catalogue 344, item 28 (£35).


    Additions:

    Occasional marginal annotations in blank ink. Examples: 1, 154

    Tiny ink notes of a modern hand on the recto of the first endleaf.

    Sections of text in Latin, introduced with a small initial in blue or red ink and underlined in red. Examples: 213, 215.

    On page 11 a drawn manicule (possibly of a later hand) pointing directly at a sentence in the text.

    Tipped-in on recto of the front endpaper, printed information about the manuscript.

    Notations in pencil on the recto of the first flyleaf.

    On verso of the fourth flyleaf and recto of the fifth flyleaf are ink and pencil notes of ownership by various hands (see Provenance).

    Library information written in pencil and ink on the inner upper cover (upper pastedown).

Place
  • Preferred form
    • England (United Kingdom)
    Original form
    • England
    Other form
    • Angleterre
    • Angleterre (?)
    • Angleterre.
    • Angleterre ?
    • Anglaterra
    • Inglaterra
    • Engeland
    • Angleterre (Salisbury ?)
    • Anglaterra (Salisbury?)
    • Inglaterra (Salisbury?)
    • England (Salisbury?)
    • [Oxford?]
    • [England]
    • England, Norwich?
    • England, Canterbury, St. Augustine's Abbey?
    • England, Cornwall?
    • England, St. Albans?
    • England, North?
    • England, York?
    • England, Witham?
    • England, Winchester or St. Albans
    • England, Reading or Leominster
    • England, Cirencester?
    • England, Sherborne?
    • England, Worcester?
    • England, Bury St. Edmunds?
    • England, Tewkesbury?
    • England, East Anglia?
    • England, Peterborough?
    • England, Mercia?
    • England, Canterbury, Christ Church?
    • England, Canterbury, St. Augustine's?
    • England, Winchester?
    • England, Oxford?
    • Flanders (possibly executed in England)
    • England and Netherlands
    • England, Canterbury?
    • England, West Midlands?
    • England, London?
    • England, Crowland?
    • England, Wessex?
    • England, Reading?
    • England, Northeast?
    • England, Southeast?
    • England, Ely?
    • England, Winchester or Hereford?
    • England, Salisbury?
    • England, Oxford or Salisbury
    • German (but made in England)
    • England, South East (?)
    • England. Peterborough (?) or Lincoln (?)
    • Hereford?, England
    • England, Durham ?
    • England, Durham?
    • England, probably Durham
    • England, Oxford (?)
    • England, possibly Oxford
    • England (?Oxford)
    • England, Durham (?)
    • England, London/Westminster
    • Unknown, possibly London and Cambridge
    • Royal Chancery, London; Cambridge
    • Engeland (?)
    • England (II)
    • I. England
    • [Engeland]
    • see more
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Rights
  • Provided by The University of Manchester. Zooming image © University of Manchester Library, All rights reserved. Images and Metadata made available for download are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0). Images and Metadata made available for download are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0).
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